Across the country, classrooms are under pressure—politically, ideologically, and pedagogically. One quiet but powerful force distorting how young people understand the world is reductionist reasoning and erasure of marginalized perspectives in the teaching of history.
Dick Price and Sharon Kyle invited Nora Lester Murad to discuss her first hand knowlege of the erasure of Palestinians in Israel. Nora is the author of the award-winning young adult novel, Ida in the Middle. A story about a Palestinian-American girl who eats a magic olive that takes her to the life she might have had in her parents’ village near Jerusalem. An important coming of age story that explores identity, place, voice, and belonging. Nora, herself is Jewish, raised in a Jewish family in Southern California but spent decades living in the West Bank with her Palestinian husband where they raised three daughters. She now lives in Massachusetts where she promotes social justice education and activism. Nora shares K-12 teaching and school advocacy resources at www.IdaInTheMiddle.com and can be reached through her blog at www.NoraLesterMurad.com.
Dick, Nora, and Sharon discuss the importance of ethnic studies. They discuss what happens to democracy when children learn from a curriculum that reduces history to a timeline of presidents and wars and omits the voices of Indigenous people, Palestinians, enslaved Africans, immigrants, workers, and women. At first glance, it might sound like good teaching—distilling complex events into simple cause-and-effect stories. But in practice, reductionist history oversimplifies the past, flattens conflict, erases marginalized voices, and prepares students to obey rather than question. In doing so, it shapes not just what students know—but how they think, act, and vote.
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